


Navy's Negotiation

by Hadithi



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25827745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadithi/pseuds/Hadithi
Summary: During Fragments, Navy attempts to make up for past wrongs and befriend Steven. Her plan? Get Connie to change her mind on the proposal.inspired by pomegranate29!
Comments: 20
Kudos: 55





	Navy's Negotiation

Navy had never been a very good Ruby. Rubies were straightforward and violence focused and impulsive. A ruby, a _good_ Ruby, was supposed to leap into combat with fists flying, not flutter her eyelashes and try to charm and sweeten her way out of a fight. That was for some other gem type, or maybe not even the way a gem should be at all, but she knew for sure that it was not the way for a ruby to be.

Like many gems, Navy had been cut wrong, grown wrong, made with some kind of an error that meant she was different from the ideal. Of course, for most of her life, Navy hadn’t known that that plenty of gems came out different. She only knew that was the kind of thing you kept very quiet and hoped you didn’t get shattered for it. She only knew that there was a way for a Ruby to be, and she was not it.

And then there was Steven. Pink Diamond. Pink Steven. Whatever he was calling himself nowadays. He had walked across the stars and said that gems could be different if they wanted. Their quirks weren’t errors, but facets of uniqueness. Differences were to be embraced rather than shunned. Honestly, that had all sounded like some strange Diamond trickery, but oddly he had really meant it.

Steven even forgave them for their actions under the Diamonds’ tyranny. He made a lot of speeches, had a lot of arguments, and did his best to explain to the whole gempire that it was better for everyone to move on, to enjoy the new era. He insisted that now was their chance to do better, to _be_ better, to be the kind of people they had always wanted to be.

“Even me?” Navy had asked, pointing to her nose with a smile.

Steven’s laugh was a little strained, his smile tight, and he asked. “Uh, is the thing you want to do killing me? Or hurting me in some way? Or tricking me?”

“No,” she said sweetly, and was almost entirely sure that she wasn’t lying about it.

“Then yeah!” Relief swept across his face.

Hmm. So it seemed that her previous acts were forgiven but not forgotten. In fact, it seemed like Steven barely trusted her - if he trusted her at all. She supposed it made sense. She hadn’t been a very good Ruby, so he had no reason to think that she was going to be a very good _Navy_ now. And, in all honesty, sometimes she did dream about how her life would have been pretty great if she had pulled off the murder. Not that murder had been her goal - she’d really just wanted to get away. But it murder had happened she wouldn’t have complained.

But, regardless of her dreams of murders past, she certainly wasn’t going to kill him now. She just needed to figure out a way to get him to trust her. But how was she supposed to make up for what she’d done? Steven was a Diamond. He didn’t need a guard. He didn’t even need a guard that was good as lying! Humans were pretty great at that already.

Navy spent a lot of time sulking over the idea, wandering around Beach City and wondering what she could get for the boy who had everything. From what she had heard, Steven was even in possession of extreme amounts of Earth currency, so he could buy practically all Earth goods, so she couldn’t even labor for scarce resources.

She was walking along the boardwalk, kicking a rock along with a scowl and hopelessness settling into her heart, when she heard a Carnelian say, “Yeah, rumor has it Steven’s gone off the deep end. Little guy tried to perma with a human and she turned him down.”

“Oof,” answered a Citrine. “That’s rough, buddy.”

And it _was_ rough. Very sad. The kind of sad that all the power of a Diamond couldn’t fix. To the best of Navy’s knowledge, even money couldn’t fix that kind of problem. You couldn’t punch someone into partnering with you - she’d heard of several gems trying and that never seemed to work out. You couldn’t pay someone to partner with you - she had heard that was very illegal.

But, perhaps, the power of a sneaky Ruby could change someone’s mind. And, perhaps, changing someone’s mind would be enough to win Steven over. Surely landing him a permafusion partner was enough to make up for a bit of accidentall near-murder?

“Excuse me!” she called, sliding up to the large gems. “Gees, all that sounds _terrible_. Could you tell me more about it?”

They did. Humans had a thing called marriage - a legal arrangement in which two people made their own attempt at permafusing. It was very pathetic, but humans tended to have a lot of very pathetic things, so that was no surprise. Steven had offered his partner Connie a chance for both - true permafusion and the human kind - and she had rejected both offers. That would be a crushing thing for any gem, but Steven had been especially bummed out lately, and so was taking the rejection especially hard.

It was _perfect_. Navy even knew Connie - not very well, but well enough. The human was a warrior, like a quartz, and regularly came to spar and teach alongside Pearl in the sky arena. The little human even liked Rubies! She thought they were cute and “rambunctious” and didn’t even mind throwing them off a cliff into the ocean when they asked her too, something Steven was notorious about refusing.

He really was a buzzkill. Anyway.

Connie had been busy lately, but years ago she would play with them all the time, and even introduced them to one of their favorite training exercises - “King of the Castle”. She’d given them a plastic crown, and whoever was wearing it had to keep it on while the rest of the gems tried to wrestle it off. Admittedly, the game had led to a lot of cracks, but it was all in good fun.

Navy, with a lot more questions and a lot more trial and error, eventually found the home of one Connie Maheswaran. Well, she actually found the homes of a lot of people, all of whom were very grumpy to have their evenings interrupted. Still, seemed a little rude of _them_ to be so mad at her.

When she knocked on the door, a tall human with gray streaks in her hair opened it, and Navy had been worried she managed to find the wrong home yet again. There were little crinkles around the woman’s narrowed eyes, but the general face seemed vaguely. The color-matched. Humans did change shape a lot. And die. Maybe Connie was dying? That would explain the permafusion offer.

Navy’s face scrunched up with confusion. “Are you Connie?”

The woman frowned. “I’m her mother. Connie is done with gem business - no missions, no training, no fighting. You’ll have to find someone else to work with.”

The door was starting to close, and Navy panicked. She put her hands on the door before Her Mother could stop it. She pressed her face up to the crack, her voice squeaking with innocence as she explained, “Oh no! I’m not here for anything like that! I’m just here to catch up with an old friend!”

The human frowned, but looked over her shoulder and called, “Connie? There’s a Ruby here to see you!”

“Garnet Ruby?” came a voice from upstairs. 

Navy beamed. _That_ was the voice she remembered. So, it seemed humans didn’t age and die quite that fast, but she was still pretty sure they only lasted around a century. She tried to push the door open a little further, but Her Mother simply narrowed her eyes and held it steady.

“The gem is on her navel,” she said, eyeing her up and down. “I believe Garnet Ruby has her gem on her palm.”

“I’m Navy,” Navy explained in an eager whisper. “Tell her Navy’s here!”

But Connie was already down the stairs, rushing to stand beside Her Mother with a considering frown. It was gone in an instant, a bright smile across her face like a switch. “Oh, hey there Navy. Long time no see. You can so we could hash out some safety rules on King of the Castle, right?”

That was definitely not what Navy was there for. It took her a second to process the idea. Of course, she was a liar herself, so it didn’t take too much to put the pieces together. Her Mother was clearly the commander here and wanted Connie to stay out of gem business. They’d have to be sneaky. Navy eagerly nodded. “Sure am! You know us dumb Rubies, always getting carried away.”

Connie smiled at the older woman. “It’s purely intellectual, Mom. I promise I’m not going to get into a fistfight with a bunch of Rubies. I’ll be fine.”

Her Mother, or Mom (why did humans have to have so many names?), eyed her for a moment, then said, “Alright. Leave your sword in the house.”

“Oh, come on,” Connie said with a laugh. She ducked beneath her mother’s arm, pushing the door open and practically dancing onto the porch. The grin on her face was nearly as charming as Navy’s, and lacked the saccharine but kept the sweetness. “You know I haven’t touched it since Spinel. _Relax_. I’ll be back before dinner, okay?”

And then the two of them were swiftly marching down the street. Connie started up a conversation about headshots and no weaponry and rules that they’d established years ago, but, again, Navy was different enough that it was easy to keep up with the idea of the lie. She answered back as if all the ideas were new to her.

Navy wasn’t sure how well humans could hear, but Connie seemed to have a good idea of it. As they rounded the corner of the block, she looked around then dropped the joyful mask into cool seriousness. “What do you want? Is something wrong? Peridot didn’t use the emergency system.”

“Steven ran away!” Navy explained frantically.

Connie nodded. “I heard.”

Well. That wasn’t what she expected. Navy mused over her reconnaissance, stumbling quickly to raise the stakes. “He crashed Greg’s van! Greg’s okay, but Steven must be in danger. He’s out somewhere, all on his own, and nobody knows where he is. All the gems are really scared. Nobody knows what to do!”

The girl shrugged and sighed. “Steven isn’t answering his phone, Navy. There’s nothing I can do about it. I tried texting, I tried calling, but he just won’t pick up. I’m really worried about him, but all I can do is give him space and wait for him to come back on his own.”

She smiled brightly up at the girl. “I want to help, Connie,” Navy insisted, then dropped the smile for her saddest sigh. “It’s just Steven. He’s been so sad lately! You don’t know what could be wrong with him, do you?”

“A lot of things,” Connie said with a sigh. “I mean, from talking to my mom, it sounds like he has severe trauma from all the war stuff and what we grew up with. He kinda went a _little_ crazy and proposed to me. I guess after I turned him down things spiraled out from there.”

“A _proposal_?” Navy asked. “What’s that?”

She pretended to listen as Connie rambled on about what proposals were, what weddings were, but Navy had done plenty of research already, so she simply smiled and nodded as she did her best to play cute. Connie seemed to like explaining things, so Navy did her best to stoke the girl’s ego as she dropped in praise like “you’re doing great” and “It’s makes so much more sense when you say it like that!”

But the more Navy heaped on the praise, the more Connie’s eyes seemed to narrowed in suspicion, until Navy leapt into the end of the explanation with, “It sounds like you did the right thing. Taking advantage of him when he was so fragile would have been terrible!”

“Uh huh.” Connie raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Listen, Navy, as much as I love compliments, I don’t really get what all this is supposed to be. I mean, you’re being so nice it feels like sarcasm.”

Navy winced, laughing nervously. “It’s not sarcasm! I mean it! It’s really amazing that you’ve even been Steven’s friend at all when all this is so rough. I mean, he’s clearly having a really hard time-”

“Uh huh,” she said, a wall of suspicious flatness no matter how sweet and cute she acted. “He really is.”

“I just think it’s really brave of you to reject him like that,” Navy said sweetly.

“It’s really not.” Her voice somehow went even flatter as she turned away. “It was something I did for me, Navy. I’m not ready to get married, so I turned him down. It wouldn’t be fair to lie to him about it, you know?”

Navy put a sympathetic hand on Connie’s leg, her eyes filling up with tears. Here was the big finale. Steven had been easy to pull on the heartstrings of, and as far as Navy could tell, Connie would surely be the same. A big, sweet girl who would feel so sad about her friend, so miserable about the sad Ruby in front of her, that she would have no choice but to change her mind.

“It _wouldn’t_ be fair. You’re so nice to even consider it. I guess, if I was in your shoes, I would just be really scared. An amazing Diamond like Steven? He’s so powerful and strong and amazing. I would think that saying no to him now is just going to make him fall in love with someone else, and he’s gonna leave you.”

Connie’s brows furrowed as she hissed, “ _Excuse_ me?”

Navy shrugged. “If he’s not gonna leave you now, it’s gonna be sometime soon. Steven needs someone to marry him right now, and it sounds like you’re not cut out for the job. Do you really think you’ll do better than Steven? You’re great, but you’re no Jasper.”

Connie stopped, staring up at the sky with a wondering horror in her voice. “I’m being negged. I”m being negged by a stupid, tiny alien.”

“He’s a Diamond and you’re just some squishy human!” Navy said, skidding in front of Connie and gesturing up and down her squishy human body. “Come on! You and me both know it can’t get any better than that for someone like us!”

“Like us?” She scoffed. “We’re _not_ the same, thanks. I’m not a soldier. I have studying to do.”

Navy rushed after her again, panicking the closer they got to Connie’s house, with Her Mother’s looming threat of slamming the door in her face. “Is studying really more important than Steven? Just give him a call on your little communicator! Everything will be fine, and he’ll be happy and-”

“Oh, will he?” Connie asked, wheeling on the tiny gem. She knelt down, bringing her furious face close to Navy’s. “Will _Steven_ be happy if I say yes? Will _Steven_ get what he wants if I take him up on it? Is it good for _Steven_ , Navy?”

“Yeah.” She blinked, confused about the very intense anger vibes.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, her teeth bared on every word. “Let me tell you a secret, Navy: It’s not just about Steven. It’s not just about how he feels. If saying yes to getting married would fix all of Steven’s problems, I’d still say no, because there’s more to my life than making Steven happy.

Navy stared, stumbling for an answer, fumbling for a lie that could fix everything. “You could say yes, but there’s a ceremony, right? So you could say yes now, and then you could just wait for years and years and-”

“I don’t want to.” Connie said shortly. “It’d be a lie to say yes, and I’m trying to lie a lot less.”

Navy’s eyes slid to the house down the lane, and red crept up Connie’s cheeks. “I said I’m trying! Nobody’s perfect, okay? The point is, I’m not ready to get married. I’m not ready to think about getting married. I’m fifteen. There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”

And, all out of options, but noticing the guilty flush to the girl’s face, Navy leapt on it. “You’re greedy!”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“You’re selfish!”

“That’s fine.” She stood and shrugged, the insult running off her back like rain off a ship.

“You’re…” she stuttered, trying to find something in the steady wall of calm in front of her. But whatever glimpse of anger she had seen a moment ago was gone, and any other emotion had been thoroughly pushed down. Words tumbled out of her, useless as she grabbed for whatever she could find: “You’re stupid! You can’t do better than him! You’re gonna end up with him someday anyway!”

“Some day, I’m gonna die,” Connie said with a roll of her eyes. “Doesn’t mean I should buy a coffin today.”

“A what?”

Connie stared for a moment, then burst into giggles. Her hand came up to her forehead, and the laughter seemed almost too loud, too wild for such a small thing. She whipped a tear from her eye and gasped, “Geez. You’re really bad at this, huh? Why are you even trying?”

Navy felt oddly shamed, and lowered her head. “I’m just trying to make Steven happy.”

“Nah,” Connie said, and dropped her hand to ruffle her hair. “I’ve been around gems long enough to know that’s not really it. What’s it _really_ about, Navy? Why are you so interested in making Steven happy?”

“So he won’t be mad at me anymore for trying to kill him that one time,” she said quietly. Then, she poked her fingers together and continued the awkward confession, “And all the other times he doesn’t know about but he’s probably gonna find out about.”

“Ooookay. _That_ makes much more sense.” Connie laughed and shook her head as her hand fell away. “Come back to my room. We can brainstorm some stuff together that isn’t me marrying Steven, and maybe he’ll come around on you if you give him some time. He’s a nice guy. It’ll work out eventually.”

“Is this a trick?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not going to stab me once you get back to your sword, right?”

Connie winked with a little grin. “Could be. But after all those tricks you pulled, I think you might be able to figure out when someone means something.”

“I probably wouldn’t,” she mumbled. “Rubies aren’t very smart.”

“Then I guess you’re a very special Ruby, huh?” 

A very _special_ Ruby, huh? A grin split across her face as she walked, hand in hand, back to Connie’s room. That was a much nicer word than wrong. Navy was different. Navy wasn’t normal. Navy was _special._

Maybe Steven could see that someday too.


End file.
